contents · think of publishing your first ebook as giving birth to your first baby. then start...

Copyright 2018 © Geoff Affleck. www.geoffaffleck.com

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Contents

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 2

Reality #1: Your Book is the Ultimate Marketing Tool ................................................................................ 2

Reality #2: Successful Authors are Good Writers and Great Marketers.................................................. 3

Reality #3: Every Name on Your Email List is Worth $10 ............................................................................ 4

1. PUBLISH AN EBOOK ...................................................................................................... 5

2. SOCIAL MEDIA ............................................................................................................. 8

3. BLOG ............................................................................................................................. 9

4. SPEAKING AND WORKSHOPS .................................................................................... 10

5. WEBINARS ................................................................................................................... 11

6. MEDIA APPEARANCES ............................................................................................... 12

7. INTERVIEWS ................................................................................................................. 13

8. HOST AN ONLINE SUMMIT .......................................................................................... 14

9. MARKETING PARTNERSHIPS ....................................................................................... 15

10. OPT-IN PAGE ............................................................................................................ 17

NEXT STEPS ...................................................................................................................... 19

About eBook Bestseller Bootcamp ........................................................................................................... 19

ABOUT ME ....................................................................................................................... 20

https://geoffaffleck.com/bootcamp


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INTRODUCTION

As someone who has worked closely with “A-list” New York Times bestselling

authors for a decade I’ve been fortunate to learn the insider secrets for building a

six-figure email list, filling the seats and live events, and publishing bestselling

books.

Along the way, I’ve also learned about the realities of what it really takes to

become a bestselling author and impact a global audience with a

transformational message like the one you may have bubbling up inside you. I

want to share four of these realities with you here.

Reality #1: Your Book is the Ultimate Marketing Tool

If your mission is to help people improve their lives in some way then you must

publish a book. This applies to anyone who is a healer, therapist, spiritual teacher,

coach, health practitioner, cook, real estate agent, financial advisor, relationship

expert, or have any kind of self-help message worth sharing.

If you haven’t published a book yet then you need to (I’ll share more about the

best way to start later in this eBook). If you have already published a book and it’s

not bringing you new leads, clients and income every month then this eBook will

show you 10 practical ways to do it!



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Why is a book the ultimate marketing tool? It can be leveraged to:

Get more speaking engagements (and higher-paying ones)

Fill your workshops and events

Build your email list

Grow your social media following

Generate royalty income

Land high-end clients

Build marketing alliances

Get into the media

Launch lucrative products and training programs

I hope you’re convinced and are going to put this on your to-do-soon list!

Reality #2: Successful Authors are Good Writers and Great Marketers

One of the most influential books I’ve read is Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T.

Harv Eker. While the book is well written, it will never win a Pulitzer Prize.

T. Harv Eker is a good writer with a conversational, cut-to-the-chase style much

like the way he teaches at his live “Millionaire Mind” seminars, but moreover, he is

a great marketer. I remember being at one of his live events when Harv

proclaimed, “Notice on the cover of my book it says best seller not best writer?”

That was a light bulb moment for me that’s I’ll never forget.

Why do some books become #1 bestsellers and stay at the top of the charts for

years while others find success only for a brief moment before sailing into the

Amazon doldrums?

The answer is simple: bestselling authors know how to market themselves and their

books. They understand that writing and marketing are parallel processes. They

don’t write the book first and then figure out how to sell it.

If marketing is not your genius then you have two choices: 1) you need to learn

how to do it, or 2) you need to outsource it. Either way you can't ignore

marketing.

Click here to read more about this topic on my blog post: If You Write it They Will

Come.


https://geoffaffleck.com/write-it-they-will-come.php

https://geoffaffleck.com/write-it-they-will-come.php


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Reality #3: Every Name on Your Email List is Worth $10

Ten dollars? What do I mean by that? Experience shows us that every subscriber

you have a well-managed email list generates about $10 per year in gross

revenue. It might be less than that and I’ve seen it much higher too.

For example if you have 1,000 people on your list then you can expect to

generate around $10,000 per year. You’ll bring in about $100K if your list is 10K,

and you’ll hit six figures in annual revenue (yes a million dollars) with an email list

of 100,000 subscribers. Sometimes a smaller list can be more responsive than a

gigantic list on a per person basis—I’ve seen lists of one or two thousands earn as

much as $30 per subscriber.

Pretty exciting numbers, huh?

Given this reality, wouldn’t the smartest thing you can do be to put your attention

on building your email list?

If you have 5,000 people or more on your email list wouldn’t it be much easier to

sell more copies of your book?

But here’s the catch 22. You need an email list to sell your book, and you need a

book to build your email list! Chicken and egg!

That’s why I say a book is the ultimate marketing tool—you can leverage a book

to build your email list and then leverage your email list to sell your book. And it

has the added benefits of building your credibility, and increasing your income

while you’re helping people to make positive changes in their lives!

So let’s move on to some practical ways to build your author platform.



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1. Publish an eBook

Yes, I’ve already talked about this in the Introduction but it’s so important that I’ll

say it again: publish a book if you haven't already done so.

The best way to start is by publishing an eBook before you even think about

publishing a printed book. I call it the Smart Publishing Path. Visually it looks like

this:

Leverage your book to build your platform

Step one is to publish a starter eBook of about ten thousand words and leverage

it to build your author platform.

You can use your eBook to build your email list, social media following and

network of supportive partners so that you have a community of fans who are

eager to buy and read your “Big” book and support it when it’s released.

The second step on the publishing path is to produce a print book—a much more

substantial book.



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I’m convinced that publishing an eBook first is one of the best ways to share your

message and here’s why:

FAST: An eBook can be written quickly: 10,000 words or so (40 pages) is easy

to write in a few days or weeks. You don’t need to find and agent or a

publisher because Amazon will gladly publish your book around the world in

just a few hours.

CLARITY: By writing your book you’ll gain insights, clarity and a new level of

mastery around your subject. The act of writing will raise your level of

confidence and authority from a ‘one’ to a ‘five’ or perhaps from a ‘five’ to

an ‘eight’ out of ten.

INEXPENSIVE: You can get a quality cover design for as little as $10 on sites like

fiverr.com. Your major expense will be hiring an editor and this is not the place

to scrimp. Your eBook should be of the same editorial quality as a printed

book. Budget $500 to $1,000 for this. Otherwise there are no costs for

publishing, printing, distribution and marketing (although you could invest in

marketing if you choose to).

CREDIBILITY: What would the addition of the words, ‘bestselling author of

[insert your book title here]’ on your website, bio, business card and email

signature do for your career? You’ll be perceived as an expert and in turn will

attract more speaking opportunities, subscribers, clients and income.

LIST BUILDING: Because you can insert links into your eBook, you can leverage

it to build your email list as readers click through to your website to receive

additional bonuses, videos and information from you.

ROYALTIES: Unlike printed books that pay the author between 7.5% and 50% of

the price of the book, eBook royalties are as high as 70%. That means you

earn around $2.00 on a $3.00 eBook and this can add up fast.



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I’ve published five books since 2013. You can see them on my Amazon Author

Central page (which is another way to build your platform).

Think of publishing your first eBook as giving birth to your first baby. Then start

raising that baby while you’re incubating your next one!

While writing and publishing an eBook sounds easy (and it can be), there are

many little pieces to the puzzle that you need to get right for your book to be a

success. If you mess up or skip just one of these pieces then all your hard work

can result in a “flop” when your eBook is released.

That’s why I created an online course called eBook Bestseller Bootcamp. It guides

new authors through all the steps to plan, write, publish, and launch an eBook.

Learn more about eBook Bestseller Bootcamp here.


https://www.amazon.com/Geoff-Affleck/e/B00E4ULH1I

https://www.amazon.com/Geoff-Affleck/e/B00E4ULH1I



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2. Social Media

Building your social media following is another important way to build your author

platform. It’s important, but not as important as building your email list.

I once asked bestselling author, Guy Kawasaki—who has about six million social

media followers—if he could choose, would he rather have six million social

media followers or have 250,000 subscribers on his email list? He said he’d rather

have the email subscribers. Why? Because you can reach them directly, track

whether or not they open or click on your emails, and the big one—because YOU

own the list. Whereas with social media, only a very small percentage of your

followers actually see your posts, and Facebook owns the list!

It can also be a LOT of work to build and maintain a social media following. But

having said that it’s still a necessary component in your author platform. That’s

why I recommend picking only one or two social media platforms so you don't

spread yourself too thin.

The key strategy when it comes to social media is to convert your followers to

email subscribers. You do this by posting links to your opt-in pages on your social

media pages along with your other content.



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3. Blog

Blogging can be a very effective way to position yourself as an expert and build

your author platform. Brendon Burchard is one of the top experts in the fields of

personal development and marketing. He uses his blog and video blog to build

his platform by posting solutions to specific problems that his followers have.

Another way to build your platform is to leverage other people’s blogs by

submitting guest posts to them. Many bloggers are always looking for fresh

content that will appeal to their audiences and are happy to accept blog posts

from other writers like you.

One of the best ways to find sites that accept guest posts is to do a Google

search for “blogs that accept guest posts” or you can narrow your search down

to your niche such as “food sites that accept guest posts”. Then submit your post

to them. Also find out who are the most popular bloggers in your niche and reach

out them to see if they accept guest posts.

Of course, when you submit your post, you must have a link back to your blog or

opt-in page so you can leverage the blog to build your email list.



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4. Speaking and Workshops

When I was first starting out as a marketing coach I built my credibility, business,

and email list through local speaking events. Partnering with my local Chamber

of Commerce, I gave free talks on marketing for small business owners. I also put

on my own free “Marketing Bootcamps” in small, affordable venues.

By drawing 10 to 30 people to each event I was able to create a steady stream

of prospects to follow up with for my business coaching programs. I remember

one time giving a free talk at a Chamber of Commerce lunchtime event and

landing three coaching clients representing $20,000 in revenue as a direct result.

Of course once you’ve published your print book you can sell it at the back of

the room to generate income and leverage the credibility of being a published

author to get even more speaking engagements.

One of my mentors, Janet Bray Attwood (pictured above) speaks all over the

world about how to find your passion and purpose. Since 2007, Janet’s Passion

Test Facilitator workshop has graduated close to 2,000 people from 50 countries

and has brought in millions of dollars in revenue for her organization. It’s also

helped her continue to sell thousands of copies of The Passion Test book.



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5. Webinars

Webinars are a fantastic alternative to live speaking events and workshops. I love

webinars because:

There’s no travel required

You don’t need to pay for a physical meeting space

You can reach a global audience and interact with them personally

You can learn what your audience’s burning questions and problems are

(through live Q&A on the webinars)

The technology for running them is inexpensive and easy to use

You can record them automatically at no cost and offer replays

You can turn them into an “evergreen” webinar that people can watch on

demand

They help you build your email list

You can easily convert webinar viewers into paid clients

It’s easy to convert a series of webinars into an online course



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6. Media Appearances

Building your author platform through mainstream media appearances is still a

terrific way to reach a broad audience with your message. TV, radio, magazines

(both print and online), newspapers, TEDx talks, and book signings are huge

credibility boosters for up and coming authors and change agents like you.

Below is one of my clients, Ellen Rogin. Ellen has done a great job getting media

appearances including a recent TEDx talk. This not only helps Ellen to build her

author platform but also brings new clients to her financial planning practice in

Chicago.



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7. Interviews

Online summits and podcasts are becoming more and more popular. There are

summits in almost every niche you can think of such as internet marketing, health

& wellness, parenting, relationships, spirituality, energy healing, happiness, home-

based businesses, personal empowerment… the list goes on.

In the past few months alone I’ve bee booked to speak on six online summits or

podcasts including:

Publishing is Fun with Kathryn Kemp Guylay

Book Marketing Mentors with Susan Friedman

Entrepreneur City with Danielle Fitzpatrick Clark

The Holistic Entrepreneur with Bonnie Groessl

Transformational Author Experience with Christine Kloser

The way to leverage these interviews to build your platform is simple: you give

away a freebie during the interview. Listeners go to your website and enter their

email address to download the resource such as a PDF (like the one you’re

reading now), a video training, a quiz, or an audio recording such as a guided

meditation.

SpeakerTunity is a service that I love which provides leads for finding online

summits and podcast hosts looking for speakers in various niches. Learn more

here.


https://hn266.isrefer.com/go/freetrials/sbm

https://hn266.isrefer.com/go/freetrials/sbm

http://bookmarketingmentors.com/ebook-a-bestseller/


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8. Host an Online Summit

While being a guest on someone else’s online summit can add a few hundred or

even a few thousand names to your email list, hosting your own summit can bring

you ten times that number as well as creating a new revenue stream.

However, hosting a summit can be a double-edged sword. On the positive side it

can be a huge email list-builder if you can secure guests who have large email

lists and are willing to promote your summit to their list. The flipside is that setting

up an online summit is a HUGE amount of work. Yes, you can outsource a lot of

the techie stuff like web design, list management, copywriting, video editing and

customer service. But that costs money. Doing everything yourself is the other

option but it requires a lot of different skill-sets and time.

If you do decide to host a summit give yourself four to six months lead time to get

everything set up in advance. Lining up your guest speakers and pre-recording

the interviews well ahead of time will make it much more manageable.

Despite the warning above, I still believe it is something worth doing because the

payoffs can be enormous in terms of list growth, relationship building, and your

own marketing skill development.



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9. Marketing Partnerships

One of the best pieces of marketing advice I have ever received is “Don't sell to

people, sell through people.” Filling your workshops and courses can be hit and

miss, but partnering with someone who already has relationships with the people

you want to share your message with is far more effective. That’s what I did with

my local Chamber of Commerce (see tip #4).

The same approach works for bringing people to your webinars, opt-in pages,

blog, social media pages, online summits, podcasts, and Amazon book page:

leverage other people’s networks to bring people to you.

You’re probably on a number of people’s email lists and regularly receive emails

recommending so-and-so’s program or inviting you to download a free gift from

their friend or colleague. Right?

This type of relationship is often referred to as a marketing partnership or joint

venture or affiliate partnership. Why do people send these emails on behalf of

others? Because they work! By collaborating with each other, marketing partners

are able to cross-pollenate their email lists, offer valuable content to their

subscribers, and increase their revenues.

If you’re a new author with a relatively small email list (under 500 subscribers) then

getting much larger partners to promote you can be a challenge. That's because

reciprocity is the cornerstone that these relationships are built on. For example, if

Partner A has 50,000 subscribers and Partner B has 500 subscribers then Partner A

has 100 times the reach of Partner B. If Partner A sends an email promoting

Partner B then Partner B will benefit enormously. However when Partner B

reciprocates, the benefit to Partner A is likely to be very small. So it’s unfair to

Partner A.

How can Partner B overcome this lop-sidedness? I learned the answer to this

question from my mentors Chris Attwood and Janet Bray Attwood: by discovering

and meeting Partner B’s critical need, Partner A can create what the Attwood’s

call an “Enlightened Alliance.” This can take some digging. I’ll give you a

personal example:

A successful “A-list” author I know was planning to switch to a new email

marketing and e-commerce system and asked me for my advice regarding

which system to go with. I gave her my advice and also discovered that there



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was an opportunity to help her team implement the new system. So I submitted a

proposal to manage the switch over project for her. Are you with me so far?

In that proposal I gave her two pricing options:

Option A: $5,000 fee.

Option B: $4,000 fee, plus I asked her to send an email to her large list to

support the upcoming online launch of my eBook Bestseller Bootcamp.

She took Option B because it saved her $1,000 and she was happy to

recommend me to her community even though her email list was 50 times larger

than mine.

We had created a win-win partnership: her promotional email added hundreds

of subscribers to my email list and several of her followers signed up for my course.

In turn, she earned some affiliate commissions from me. Then a couple of months

later I promoted a program that she was launching and some of my subscribers

joined it (and I earned a commission on those enrolments). Now she is planning to

recommend me again to her list for a new program of mine. Everyone is happy!

My advice is to start out by approaching smaller potential partners and as your

list builds and you gain more experience building these win-win relationships you

can approach larger partners.



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10. Opt-in Page

The cornerstone of your author platform is our email list and the cornerstone of

building your email list is an opt-in page. Having an opt-in page is as important as

having an eBook! You should have both.

An opt-in page is a web page where you give away a digital gift in exchange for

an email address.

Here are some ideas for opt-in gifts:

1. An audio such as an MP3 guided meditation or Podcast subscription.

2. A video such as a recorded webinar or a series of “how to” videos.

3. A quiz: People love to take quizzes that reveal something about

themselves.

4. An eBook: This might be a PDF version of an eBook you have published on

Amazon or a shorter eBook like this one.

5. A PDF guide, worksheet, or helpful checklist.

6. A mini –course such as my “Ultimate Marketing Tool” course that you can

access for free here.

Opt-in Page Elements

There are six basic elements that every opt-in page should have:


http://training.geoffaffleck.com/


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1. Headline

The headline’s job is grab attention by offering something of benefit,

offering something for free, or evoking curiosity. It should make the reader

want to keep reading.

2. Subhead

The subhead explains a little more about the problems you’re solving, and

benefits you’re offering. In the example below the subhead is “Eliminate

Overwhelm & Struggle to Gain Clarity & Ease in Your Life Right Now!”

3. Specific Benefits

This is usually a short paragraph and/or three to five bullet points with more

specific information about the benefits of your free gift. I could also be

“what you’ll learn…”

4. Social Proof

In this part of the page you share a couple of testimonials from your clients.

5. Build trust

Elements that build trust are your photo (if you look trustworthy), your

credentials, or perhaps a caption like “#1 Bestseller”.

6. Call to Action

Finally your page must have a strong call to action that tells the reader

what you want them to do next. This is typically expressed as “Enter your

name and email below to receive your free gift”.



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Next Steps

You’ll notice that I’ve spent the most time explaining the first way (an eBook) and

the tenth way (an opt-in page) to build your author platform. There’s a good

reason for this: I believe they are the most important marketing tools that every

author, expert, helping professional, or transformational teacher MUST have.

The eight other ways are also important but you don’t have to do all of them at

once! Often my clients who are just starting to build their platforms ask me which

of these 10 ways they should start with. My response is usually this:

1. Begin by creating a free digital gift and setting up a simple opt-in page.

2. Then write and publish a 10,000-word eBook that solves a specific problem

that your ideal clients, students, or readers have.

3. The third step is building several marketing partnerships to bring more

people to your opt-in page and eBook.

4. And the fourth phase is to start speaking wherever you can: online

summits, podcasts, webinars or live events.

About eBook Bestseller Bootcamp

eBook Bestseller Bootcamp is a comprehensive interactive online training

program that shows you exactly how to write, publish and launch your first non-

fiction eBook.

It's been developed specifically for messengers, teachers, authors, speakers and

experts who currently have expertise or life experiences in the genres of self-help,

spirituality, health, relationships, success, money or 'how-to' that they want to

share with the world.

I’ll personally guide you through my 7 P’s eBook Bestseller Blueprint so you can

publish an eBook that helps people improve their lives and provides you with a

credible base for making a living doing what you love.

Click the button below to discover how my eBook Bestseller Bootcamp can help

you to quickly and effectively write, publish, and launch your first eBook.




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About Me

I’ve been working in the field of self-development, online marketing, and

publishing since 2009. As a guide for self-help authors I’ve helped both New York

Times bestselling authors and new authors alike to develop authentic, highly

engaging, and lucrative non-fiction books, programs and marketing funnels for

their expanding reach around the world.

I was fortunate to learn from and collaborate with three master mentors, New

York Times bestselling authors - Marci Shimoff, Janet Bray Attwood and Chris

Attwood who helped me fine-tune a proven system — the eBook Bestseller

Blueprint — for creating successful self-help eBooks that engage, inspire and

transform readers.

Thanks to their guidance our first eBook, Enlightened Bestseller: 7 Keys to Creating

a Successful Self-Help Book instantly became an Amazon #1 bestseller and has

been downloaded over 8,000 times. Since then I’ve co-authored four more #1

bestsellers and helped dozens of authors do the same.

As a speaker I’ve has shared the stage with transformational leaders and

bestselling authors including Marci Shimoff, Janet Bray Attwood and Chris

Attwood, John Assaraf, Lisa Sasevich, Greg Habstritt, and T. Harv Eker.

I have an MBA from the Schulich School of Business in Toronto, Ontario and a

Bachelor degree in Marketing from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

Born in Australia, I now live on Vancouver Island, BC. In my spare time I love

sailing, yoga, skiing, and being with my supportive wife, Lesley and high-energy

daughter, Skyla on our small horse farm.

My passion is helping conscious entrepreneurs like you accelerate the growth of

their business by translating their knowledge, personal stories and teachings

into bestselling books and online programs — so they can impact people’s lives

and make a good living doing it.


contents · think of publishing your first ebook as giving birth to your first baby. then start...

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